FAA Computers Are Too Old For Vista

A few government agencies and even a couple of large corporations have decided to delay purchasing Vista for the time being with reasons of (but not limited to) security, support, and high hardware requirements. Apparently the agency in charge of the airways in the U.S. falls into the last category:

"An internal memo from top technology officials at the Federal Aviation Administration cites Windows Vista's hardware requirements as a major reason why the government agency may pass on upgrading its computer systems to Microsoft's widely-hyped new operating system.

The memo, which was authored just prior to Windows Vista's commercial release at the end of January, notes that Vista requires "twice the memory ...than that currently specified in the FAA Desktop standard configuration."

It also points out that the operating system, Microsoft's successor to Windows XP, needs "a faster processor" and graphics cards that are also beyond the hardware specifications of PCs used by the FAA."

It's boggles the mind why people and/or organizations would want to upgrade software (read as add new features) and not have plans to upgrade the hardware (read as have the computing power to run those features). There's nothing wrong with older hardware that has proven to be reliable, but it is a little unsettling that such an important agency is running older and/or slower machines and even considering mixing them with the latest in software.